Daisy's best friend, Lucy, is set to be married in a huge production at the family home. However, things are not going as planned when Aunt Eva, a nosy gossip with a penchant for emotional blackmail, is strangled. Not long after the eccentric botanist, Uncle Aubrey is found dead--is it poison or a weak heart? When Lucy's intended (maybe/maybe not?), Gerald arrives early, he is attacked in the conservatory where Aubrey died. As Alec, Tom, and Piper try to sort out the family dynamics, Daisy's natural openness leads people to talk with her revealing clues that could unmask the killer or is it killers?

1920s, England, verbal-humor, cozy-mystery, country-house, family, family-dynamics, friendship, historical-novel, historical-research, murder, murder-investigation, multigenerational, law-enforcement, amateur-sleuth, situational-humor, wedding-madness*****

This one is much closer to farce (in my opinion). Many of the characters or their actions (especially Daisy, DCI Alec, and Lucy) are pretty much caricatures designed to entertain while trying to solve the murder before either Daisy or her DCI husband have their *TA-DA* moment. The publisher's blurb is a pretty good hook, but get ready to groan or laugh as the story unfolds!
Lucy Rayner certainly has a way of differentiating characters as well as emphasizing Alec's frustrations and Daisy's perkiness. ( )

Daisy's best friend Lucy is finally going to marry her long-time beau, Gerald (Binkie).

At the behest of Lucy's mother, Grandfather paying for everything and Lucy's entire family is up at the family mansion.

Unfortunately Lucy's Aunt Eva has a nasty penchant for keeping journals' of the family's peccadilloes and keeping the knowledge to herself, until such time as she wishes to impose her will (control) upon one of her unsuspecting family members.

When Aunt Eva is murdered there is no shortage of suspects.

The following day during tea-time, Gerald happens upon Lucy's Uncle, the heir apparent, in his conservatory, dead from the oleander leaves mixed in with his tea. Gerald administers CPR to no avail....

With all the frenetic activity in the household: people chasing after Daisy for information, quarreling with each other, demanding to leave... Lucy , in a fit of stress, decides to break up w/ Gerald... but then Gerald is struck from behind, as the murderer fears, Gerald might have witnessed the murder.

This was quite long & drawn out, which made it boring; and even with the Family Tree on the front pages, it was difficult to keep track of who everyone was....

Most everyone in the family had something to hide and all had motive for murder, including Lucy.... most were not very nice people! ( )

Daisy Dalrymple is now Daisy Fletcher and sharing her namesake Jessica Fletcher's inability to go anywhere without attracting a corpse to the party. Honestly if I had a friend like that I'd stop inviting them around. This time Daisy is attending her best friend, Lucy Fotheringay's wedding. Lucy has cold feet about the wedding, but didn't expect that corpses would start to pile up.

Entertaining but the idea is starting to be a bit stretched. ( )

Lucy and Binkie (Gerald) are finally getting married, Lucy invites Daisy to stay with her at the family home for a few days before the wedding. Then Lucy's great Aunt Eva, who keeps track of the gossip surrounding the family members, is strangled. The wedding is postponed as Alec is called into investigate and find out which member of Lucy's extensive family is a murderer. Then Lucy's uncle dies, possibly not unexpectedly but is this also murder? A good addition to the series as all the main characters are back on on form and the plot is full of misdirection, I really didn't see the identity of the murderer and why coming, and the period detail really adds to the atmosphere. ( )